


South of Heaven, North of Hell

by sayhitoforever



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Demon Grimmjow, Emotional Trauma, M/M, Supernatural Crossover, demons and other supernatural creatures, lots of blood and violence, suit wearing demonjow you're welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:33:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24739309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sayhitoforever/pseuds/sayhitoforever
Summary: After the murder of his mother, Ichigo craves the power to protect his family and friends from the evil he knows lives among them. Craves it enough to make a deal with a crossroads demon in exchange for his soul. But the greater the wish, the steeper the cost, and it could be more than his soul that he gives up in the end.Supernatural AU
Relationships: Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Ichigo
Comments: 15
Kudos: 49





	South of Heaven, North of Hell

**~**

Ichigo stands alone on a muggy July night, heart beating like a war drum in his chest, and waits. Because this _has_ to work. He rode all this way, it can’t be for nothing. His father would kick him out his bedroom window if he knew that he’d biked nearly five miles into the country, leaving the city and all the lights behind him. He’d have punted Ichigo across the room even _without_ knowing why Ichigo was here, just for being irresponsible and potentially endangering himself. 

He thinks that he should probably have a few hang-ups over this whole thing, but he can’t think of any as he stands in the dirt road, eyes flitting this way and that, looking for movement. He startles himself when he shifts to look behind him and catches his own shadow before he turns back around. 

And then he sees a man.

Ichigo realizes then that he doesn't know what he was expecting. Maybe something with horns or a pointy tail? A beautiful woman in a red dress and unreasonable shoes, just like in the movies? Something clearly out of place for a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Instead it’s a man with a head of blue hair as wild as flame, regarding him coldly, clinically. A black suit jacket and pressed pants, the buttons of his shirt that looks like blue silk open at his throat. He looks like he might have wandered out from one of the houses down the road, except for how he just kind of appeared out of nowhere. Not to mention the complicated string of beads that hang from his neck, all soft blues and teals that seem to glow under the moonlight. 

And when he smiles at Ichigo, like he knows _exactly_ what Ichigo is thinking, what he’s doing out here, it’s with teeth that are too sharp to be human. Teeth in his mouth and the teeth attached to his face, white as bone where they lie across his cheek, splitting open in a mirror of the same Cheshire grin. 

“Ichigo Kurosaki,” the man says. “We’ve been expecting you.” Unblinking eyes of blue look him up and down, meandering in their pace as they take in Ichigo’s scuffed Converse and jeans with holes in the knees, his plain T-shirt and the unnecessary hoodie he’d thrown over. Blue like the ocean that the Kurosaki family always visited during the summer. Blue, endlessly blue, unsettling, inhuman, looking at Ichigo like this is _his_ crossroads wish.

“How did—” he starts, clutching ever tighter the little box with his wish written on a shred of notebook paper he’d torn out and all the other ingredients the ritual had called for still in his hoodie pocket. He hasn’t even taken it out, much less buried it at the crossroads like the directions on the internet said to do. Then he stops. “We?”

“You’ve been planning this for a while.” His teeth are very white in the moonlight.

Ichigo can’t find his voice to even lie and disagree. This is just —what the _hell_ is he doing here? He should leave, but this is probably his chance, his only chance. He’s already biked all the way out here and broken his dad’s hilarious idea of a curfew by sneaking out his own bedroom window. He’s in so much shit if he goes home and gets caught. He’s here because this is all he can think about, his wish. He doesn’t care that today is his birthday, one of the most important people in his life wasn’t there for the first time and _it’s his fault._

_Rain pattering against the umbrella she holds over his head, insisting though he’s taller than she is now. The gentle splash of each puddle they walk through. Her smile as radiant as the summer sun as she grins up at him. It’s a moment he’ll never forget, cannot forget now. Suspended between water and the smell of wet oil rising from the asphalt as they walk, it’s Ichigo and his mom and her shoulder pressed to his until she’s wrenched away. Ichigo is no stranger to things that go bump in the night. All his young life he’s caught things out of the corner of his eyes that he knows most people don’t see or aren’t paying attention to. They don’t bother him, he doesn’t bother them. It’s an agreement he makes to no one but himself, to live and let live, until it isn’t._

It doesn’t matter that it’s his birthday, because ever since his mother was murdered and he’d had to stand there, helpless, incapable, he’s held this one wish, in his heart, a secret he swallows no matter how it burns like acid. Power, he wants power. The power to protect the people he cares about, so he never has to feel that way again, so he never has to watch his sisters or his father suffer like that again. He’s well aware that every pop-culture trope is about how power corrupts, but he’s too committed to the idea to really pay it any heed.

“It’s important to me,” he murmurs, though he knows this whole thing is absolutely batshit. “It’s not right. It’s not fair.”

“And you want me to make it right?” The man steps closer, shoes crunching on the gravel of the road, and Ichigo kind of desperately wants to take a step back, away, put distance between him and those teeth and the smile they form.

Everything about this man is unsettling. The sharpness of his features, teeth not included, all squared angles of a strong jaw and a proud nose. He’s close enough now that Ichigo can’t pretend he’s human like he has with everything else, every other day of his life. Eyes with a bioluminescent glow, the mask of bone secured to his cheek. Blue hair of artful chaos piled atop his head, hanging in his eyes. Eyes, close enough now that Ichigo can tell there’s swaths of teal smudged beneath them like paint. It’s hard to tell how old he is, older than Ichigo probably, but certainly nowhere in the age range of his father. Something ageless and ancient all at once. The most unnerving thing about him is the way he smells: like a bonfire, and something strangely sweet like burning sugar, with undertones of something not unlike brimstone.

“Maybe you should be real specific about what you want,” the man almost purrs, a muted lilt of words as overpowering as his gaze. “Ya know, the terms of the contract, so we’re clear.”

“I want power. I want the power to protect my family and my friends from all the bad things in the world.” Ichigo has never admitted his wish to anyone before, his family or his friends, always knew he’d never be able to stomach the looks on their faces. He doesn’t look at this man’s face either, shoves his one free hand deep into the pocket of his jeans, hunching his shoulders. He searches for something else to say, but after a stagnant silence all he can find is: “I don’t want anyone else I care about to die. I want to be able to protect them.”

“There’s always a price,” says the man, inching another step closer, too close. Ichigo feels caught in a blaze of blue as bright as a forest fire. “The bigger the demands of the wish, the higher the price. It’s how these things work.”

Ichigo looks up at him now, at his teeth, at the smear of teal beneath his ludicrously blue eyes. He’s still smiling. “Do you have a name? What can I call you?” he asks haltingly.

The smile falls a little and its absence is even more disturbing. “Do you really need to know?”

“I just— in case this doesn’t work.”

Now the smile is completely gone and the cold clinicality is back. A shudder skitters its way up Ichigo’s spine. “I keep my deals, Ichigo Kurosaki. This is what I do. It’s _all_ I do.”

“I need a name. I need to know who to call on if I need to,” Ichigo insists around his throat constricting like a boa under the terror.

“Jaegerjaquez,” the man supplies after a beat.

“Why are you—” Ichigo struggles to find the right way to phrase his question, unable to keep the curiosity at bay. “Why don’t you have, you know.” He gestures a little with his free hand, banking on the gesticulation of _tail and horns and stuff_ to be easy to understand.

“We appear as whatever will be the most persuasive.” Jaegerjaquez closes the last little bit of distance between them and then they’re standing face-to-face. The smell of caramelizing sugar and burning cedar fills Ichigo’s nose, and it’s now or never.

“So, what do I have to give you, my first born?” he questions. “And how— how long will I have?”

“Your soul, naturally. But you knew that.” Jaegerjaquez’s smile is back, but not quite in full force. “As for how long, ten years is a standard contract.”

“Twenty,” Ichigo counters immediately, before his brain catches up with his mouth and the sheer idiocy of _bargaining with a demon_ hits him. “That’s nothing. My family...”

“Ten,” Jaegerjaquez repeats, voice unwavering.

“Ten is _nothing_ ,” Ichigo stresses again, anxiety beginning to prickle in his chest, cold like ice. “That’s— I’d be twenty-five.”

Jaegerjaquez stares at him, blue eyes narrowing in what Ichigo can only perceive as a threat. “This is all about protecting your family, getting revenge on the people who hurt them. Won’t that be fulfilling enough? Isn’t that the _point_?”

It strikes Ichigo then that this creature is maybe the only person – _the only thing_ – whose ever really understood why he wants this. It saddens him a little, because he knows his father wouldn’t understand, his father the doctor, the healer, _do no harm_. His friends wouldn’t understand either, he thinks. They’ve all lost people over the years, usually grandparents to old age, natural deaths. They all think that Ichigo’s mother was struck by a car, a hit-and-run driver, but none of them had been there. They hadn’t seen what he had.

“Revenge?” Ichigo parrots, voice tight, chest even tighter. He feels like glass, see-through and oh-so-breakable. 

That brings the demon’s smile back in all its shudder-worthy glory, all teeth and canines and the promise of pain. “Even the score, rid the world of scum like the ones that offed whoever you’re mourning. You want to _protect them_ , but you asked for power. You didn’t ask _me_ to protect them.”

Ichigo is struck silent, heart in his throat, head reeling at the way this demon has managed to dance around him so easily, ensnare him. He thought he had this all under control, brought his box with the materials the ritual called for, had planned to do everything the right way. “You could do that?”

“Bit late now, isn’t it?” the demon purrs again, the teeth secured to his cheek clacking a little as his smile widens even further. “So, do we have a deal? The power to defeat your enemies and protect your loved ones in exchange for your soul?” 

“Ten years,” Ichigo murmurs, eyes dropping to the strange beads strung around the demon’s neck. “I won’t even get to see my sisters graduate.” The realization brings a rush of emotion and bile to his throat. His eyes burn a little as he grips the box still tucked in his hoodie pocket tighter.

“Ten years, and I promise no harm will come to you in those ten years, at least not by my hand,” the demon assures, voice gentling an imperceptible amount. “You’ll live those ten years out in full.” 

Ichigo swallows roughly, looks anywhere except at the demon’s face. “And what happens if you change your mind?”

“Then the contract is null, you keep your soul, I go home hungry having wasted my time. C’mon, kid, I don’t have all fuckin’ millennia. Do we have a deal or not?” Jaegerjaquez demands and sticks his right hand out.

“We have a deal,” Ichigo repeats back, raising his gaze back to the demon’s and pulling his hand from his pocket to take it. 

The demon’s hand is ice cold as he grasps it, and then Jaegerjaquez yanks him forward, off balance, and slants his lips over Ichigo’s. They’re just as cold as his hand, and the edge of the mask of bone teeth attached to his face digs into Ichigo’s cheek a little. It’s his first kiss, and it’s surprising, Jaegerjaquez’s cold nose against his own, the way he tastes like brown sugar. Jaegerjaquez’s hand comes up to cup his cheek, and Ichigo lets out a startled huff of breath and kisses him back, because it’s a kiss and that’s what you’re supposed to do, he thinks. Except Jaegerjaquez pulls back, hand slipping from Ichigo’s cheek.

“Standard practice,” the demon says with a sly smile, remaining in Ichigo’s space. And the moon is full enough that Ichigo hopes that the heat he feels in his face isn’t as obvious on his cheeks. He wonders, wildly, stupidly the moment considering, if Jaegerjaquez is telling the truth or not. And then he’s gone, and Ichigo is left alone on the dirt road under the moon, box still hidden in his pocket.

Ichigo Kurosaki is fifteen years, three hours, and thirty-two minutes old the night he sells his soul with a kiss.


End file.
